


If Hope Can Be Had

by Captains_Orders



Series: Queen of Crows [4]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Drabble, Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4717364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captains_Orders/pseuds/Captains_Orders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not how she pictured their reunion, not how she dreamed about the impossible, but her sister is miraculously alive and for the first time in many days the future has potential.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Hope Can Be Had

**Author's Note:**

> I finally finished this drabble wow! Well mostly anyway, it got so long I decided to split it into two parts, and I will have a follow up part up at some point.   
>  It's amazing to see my first tiny drabble fully fledged into a oneshot. Considering this is where me re-entry into fic writing came from I'm just really happy to see it done and while I'm not sure where I stand exactly with the final product, I'm proud.  
> Valkyrie just won't leave me alone.  
> Unbetad

She hears the name Furiosa and she remembers. It has been so long since she had seen her that she had forgotten what the younger girl looked like, forgotten all but the memory that she had once been her friend, her sister. She remembered a little girl who shoved her into the dirt when she dared to call her small, she had wiped the mud from her elbows when she stood, called the little fury strong instead and from that point on they’d been near inseparable, little Furiosa becoming her shadow as they learned under their Initiate Mother. When they learned to shoot she remembered feeling both indignant and proud that her younger sister was a better shot, practiced twice as hard until she was just as sharp. Furiosa had excelled at everything, and Valkyrie wondered how high she would have risen had she not been stolen away so young. The faint memory of nights spent watching the stars and chasing satellites across the sky with their small fingers, ducking amongst the trees in fits of laughter, of splashing in the clear pools of a home now dead as sure as Furiosa must be. They were treasured and precious memories she kept close to her heart, buried away deep as time passed like the ever shifting sands of the waste.

She hears the name Furiosa and she remembers all of this as she rushes forward to see who dares to claim that name. The woman is tall, hair shorn close to her head, a dangerous look about her. Her eyes however hold a desperate hope, a fire she recognizes from young eyes staring fiercely up at her. It is impossible, but when she looks closer she knows, this woman is Furiosa returned after so long. She rushes to embrace her sister, forehead pressed against hers and tears wet against her cheeks. She looks again into those eyes when she pulls back just to be sure, it’s her, and she says it to make it real, to let her people know. Furiosa has tears in her eyes and Valkyrie hugs her before she can see them fall, holding tight to the sister she thought gone forever. 

The little fury has grown so much in her time away, tall and strong, fierce as the wastes. But her eyes show the most, all that she must have endured, more than a metal arm ever could. When they tell her the fate of the Green Place, she watches that hope die and hears the despair and anger echo across the sands.

The young women Furiosa has brought to them are strange, too soft and clean to belong in the wastes. The men are strange too. The rest of the Vuvalini examine the girls, practically cooing over the young things, but Valkyrie has wary eyes only for the men. Furiosa called them reliable, a high compliment in the wasteland, higher still from this hard woman Furiosa has become. The man in the war machine has made no move to exit; unlike the boy that had joined the girls as soon as he deemed it safe, nestling up quickly to the redhead like a moth to flame. The man sits in the rig and watches Furiosa, still on her knees against the sand. Valkyrie knows better than to approach her sister in her grief; the anguished scream was still ringing in her ears. So she watches the man watch Furiosa, watches as her people set up camp while Keeper fusses over the girls. She hears the word ‘impractical’ and a muttered ‘that won’t do’ and has to stifle a laugh until she turns her eyes back to the stranger only to find him staring back. From the distance it’s a simple tilt of the head, but Valkyrie knows his eyes are on her. She turns her head to look out to Furiosa and then back, it’s the closest thing to a question (or is it a threat) that she can convey from such a distance. He seems to understand her meaning clear enough, and she watches as he shifts positions and returns to his vigil. 

Valkyrie sits and listens to the four young women tell their story, how they were wives to a warlord, liberated by Furiosa, and now chased across the wastes. They tell the tale well, the mad man made friend, the loss of their sister, the way that Furiosa and the mad man fought off so many to keep them safe, it’s an exuberant and dramatic telling, but she and the other Vuvalini hang on every word. They come from a place so different from them, where women are stock and boys are fodder. She does not need to be told to know Furiosa was one of them. Her heart breaks that much more thinking of all the unspeakable horrors her sister must have endured. She understands the haunted look in her eyes now, the broken cry to the wastes, it hurts. The Green Place was a dream for all of them, Furiosa most of all, and now that dream is dead. Valkyrie thinks of the half-life babe who died before the green, who could have been strong had the green not died and been infested by crows. He would have named for them had he lived, a testament to dying things in a dying world. She is distracted by her forlorn musings by the girl who reminds her strikingly of Quick. Toast she thinks is what her name is, the one with Quick’s brown skin and dark hair, but so different in demeanor. 

“So if there’s no Green Place, what now?” It’s an excellent question, and the other girls fall silent. 

“We’ll figure that out once we’ve got you all fed, you must be starving.” Keeper says before anyone else can form a response. The sudden tension amongst her people defuses immediately and she heaves a sigh in relief and thanks every power that may be that Keeper of The Seeds is still with them. The old woman has become a pillar of unity for the clan and without her she can hardly imagine where and what they would be. Yani and Mayra nod in agreement and head off to gather supplies, now’s as good a time as any to set up camp. 

The sun is setting when Furiosa finally joins them, her eyes red, dry, and broken. She does not speak as she returns, just sits a distance from the group, still in silent mourning. Valkyrie is on her feet immediately, going to her bike and pulling a blanket from the supplies she keeps on the back. She drapes the worn fabric across Furiosa’s shoulders and sits next to her without a word, content to sit in quiet comfort with her sister. After a while Furiosa speaks, voice steady as she hides the rawness of it.

“How long has it been?” She doesn’t need to clarify.

“Over a thousand days.” 

“Why did you stay?” Valkyries stares off into the night for a long moment, those same satellites from their childhood being chased by the young woman Furiosa brought to them, their voices low and mingled with the familiar sound of her clan’s. 

“Where else is there to go?” She says finally, turning in time to see her sister’s face fall before she catches it and looks away. 

“What about the Plains?” 

“Don’t have the supplies, we’d never make it.”

“We could try. With what the Rig has we could try.” Valkyrie considers it. The Vuvalini have nothing to lose. They are a dying breed with no future, none to carry their bloodline, their legacy. They will fade as the old world faded and be forgotten. Suddenly Valkyrie is not looking at young women draped in Vuvalini fabric being taught the ways of green, she is looking at their salvation. Perhaps that is what Furiosa saw in them, hope, because that is the only name for what she is feeling now. 

“Then we should try. Maybe we’ll find more green.” Furiosa seems unconvinced, but she can’t help but imagine what they could find, what they could build. For the first time in many days Valkyrie does not feel despair thinking of what could happen in the days to come. 

“You think the others will want to risk it?”

“We are dying out, Furiosa. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we do not want to die here hiding in the sand.” Her sister nods at that, resigned but understanding, brow furrowed. When she gets no response she continues. “What about the girls?” 

“There’s hope across the salt, they’ll follow it.” Valkyrie nods after a long moment, squeezes Furiosa’s shoulder, and stands. 

“I’ll let the others know, see what they think. We’ll figure something out.” Little fury she wants to say, but the words get stuck. This woman is not the girl she knew, and far from the fiery child from her youth. So she simply goes without another word to speak with the mothers, and she hopes.

She finds Yani and Mayra where she left them, talking quietly amongst themselves. It does not take much to convince them of the possibility to cross the salt, and seeing as the other Vuvalini are still occupied with the girls, they chose to talk now and share later. After that the details are worked out quickly, and the idea seems tangible, possible. The only problem then is what to do with the men, the supplies will hold and the Vuvalini are strong, but men have always been fickle at best in this world. The world they created according to the girls.

“Will they come with us, the men?” Mayra asks warily. Furiosa has held steady through the conversation until now, and she can see how she falters slightly.

“The boy goes where we go.” 

“And him?” She nods to the other one, no longer in the rig but seated by it, turned away from the group. Furiosa sighs.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want him to come with us?” Valkyrie meets her eyes and knows the answer.

“He’s reliable.”

“He have a name?” Yani finally speaks.

“He didn’t give one, so now he’s just Fool.”

“A reliable fool? Didn’t know the world had those.” Mayra says and her sister all but snorts.

“Neither did I.” 

“If you trust him, I will trust him.” Valkyrie concedes, and can see the way Furiosa sags in relief, or maybe its appreciation. Regardless her reaction is evident, and Valkyrie finds comfort in that.

“Thank you.” Furiosa sighs, lets her body droop for just a moment before her shoulders harden once more. “He’ll need a bike, fully loaded with whatever we can spare.”

“You want to give him a bike? We hardly have enough for all of us!” It is true, they only have three spare bikes, an impressive feat considering what they have endured, but they could be put to use now, do the deceased proud. But even she is wary of letting this mad man loose on a fully loaded bike, reliable or not.

They concede eventually, a long drawn out debate until Furiosa’s fierce insistence wins them over. One at a time they pull their people aside to share the plan, it is an easy conviction and soon the three of them return to Furiosa’s side. Now they wait while she confronts her fool. Valkyrie watches the exchange and she aches, and when Furiosa returns to them, morose and quiet, the pain is that much sharper.

“He’s making his own way.” Is all she says as she passes them by, shouldering on to her patch of hardened sand. She follows, but gives her sister space.

All Valkyrie can picture is what home once was but new, to be greeted by a face long gone to the world, one she will not see until she herself is swept away and claimed by the world. Somehow the thought is comforting, and she lets it calm her as the small camp they’ve made settles and readies for rest, perhaps their last full night for one hundred and sixty days. She doubts she’ll last that long, not that she would tell Furiosa, but even now on a relatively good day, she knows her body will fail. Hope must sustain her for now; get her far enough and last long enough that the thought of more green becomes a probability instead of a dream. Now there is just the silent night, and the restless shifts of her sister beside her.

“Sleep, little fury, I’ll keep watch.” Furiosa stills instantly. The old nickname has her frozen, and for a moment Valkyrie thinks she has broken whatever fragile thing they have left, but with a long release of breath Furiosa relaxes, settles, and lays down on her back with her eyes closed. She wants to run her fingers across her soft fuzz of hair, lull her to sleep with a humming tune from home, but that is lost to her. Again she reminds herself that Furiosa is not the girl she knew, and she has lost that place in her sister’s life. So she sits and watches, waiting for the day to come.


End file.
